Lady Luck is a Poor Mistress
by TheHouseofTricks
Summary: The fair maiden of chance and happenstance does not favor Drury Walker. Another failed heist, another near-death experience, another ruined costume, and another sizable hole in an otherwise nice shirt. Yes, tonight has been one moment of misfortune after another, but the worst is yet to come. If Mr. Walker is going to survive, he's going to need all the luck in the world.


Gotham is a city with a soul of its own. She has presence that affects all of her tenants, for better or worse. Unfortunately for Drury Walker, Gotham's favor does not lie with him, nor will it ever as far as he is concerned.

Another day, another dozen or so injuries and another gloriously unsuccessful heist. Today, however, could be considered better than usual. He had suffered no serious wounds, just the usual cracked ribs and bruises. Plus, he had even managed to slip away from the police. Granted, he had only managed to accomplish that because he had ducked through an abandoned junk yard, which almost resulted in him being crushed by a rusty old crane, and hid in a pile of rotting...unidentifiable substances which smelled distinctively like corpses and sour milk. Well, beggars can't be choosers and considering what typically happens when one of his plans implodes on itself this was a god-send.

He peeled off his ruined costume, he knew from experience that no amount of detergent would rid the poor abused cloth of that rancid stench, and stuffed it firmly under the pile of decomposing garbage. With the evidence of his escape route sufficiently hidden, not that anyone even considered him a big enough threat to bother to wasting their time finding him, he slipped out of the junk yard through a small hole in the fence that surrounded it. Or at least he attempted to. He was about half way through the hole when the ragged edges of the metal fence snagged and pulled on his undershirt and trousers.

All he really wanted to do at this point was to slip home as quickly and discreetly as possible clothes be damned, but he was running low on clothing and the last thing he needed was a huge hole in one of the only undamaged shirts he had left. So he stopped, sighed, and slowly began the process of freeing himself. The position he was in made it impossible to look back at the snagged pieces of cloth and he groaned upon realizing that. Thankfully, he had enough experience with this sort of thing to compensate for the lack of vision, and he kept his eyes trained on the road in front of him.

His eyes darted back and forth as he kept a lookout for any sign of the police or anyone that looked like they would want to mug him, which was unfortunately a majority of Gotham's criminal population. As fate would have it, he didn't even need to see through the darkness that permeated the back streets of Gotham's poor district to realize that something unpleasant was headed his way.

The ground trembled as someone-or something stomped out of one of the backstreets directly in front of him. Drury froze as an enormous silhouette slowly made its way towards him. His every instinct told him to run, but somewhere at the back of his mind a sole voice of reason pipped up. If he were to try to get up and escape, he wouldn't make it. His odds of surviving an encounter with something that huge while he was struggling to get out from under the fence were not good. Then it hit him. Use the oldest trick in the book. Play dead. Shootings and muggings were pretty common in this part of the city and it was so dark that the thing approaching him probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a body and a man scared witless. He slowly dropped his head to the ground and closed his eyes. All that was left to do was to pray and wait.

The footsteps continued to grow louder and louder until they sounded like they were right in front of him. Drury stayed as still as possible; he couldn't, however, help but clench his eyes tighter as he waited for what he assumed would be his untimely demise...Which never occured. The figure had apparently stopped just a few feet away and judging by the slight grunt that they had just released was currently in the process of lifting something heavy. Whatever the heavy object was, the figure set it down with a slight clang. Once more the ground shook. Strangely, it appeared to come from underneath Drury rather than from in front of him.

Drury remained motionless for several minutes before finally gathering up enough courage to take a cautious peek. Nothing. He quickly untangled himself and in his haste caused some small holes to form in his shirt and trousers. Scrambling to his feet and making a mad dash for the nearest path towards home proved to be a rather poor move on his part. Not ten seconds after he had gotten up, he tripped over a recently removed manhole cover and just barely caught himself at the edge of the entrance to the sewers. Had he not been so fortunate, he likely would have broken his neck upon making contact with the stone slab lying just beneath the hole in the ground.

Drury breathed a sigh of relief and almost laughed at his incredible luck. It would have been nice not to trip over the cover at all, but considering the strangeness of this night, he was happy to have even the slightest bit of good fortune. This, however, would appear to be the point at which his miniscule reserve of heavenly blessings had finally run out. As he turned to leave, he slipped on the wet pavement and fell head first backward into the opening.


End file.
